Burpee Variations for Beginners | Proper Form & Progressions

All right, let's be honest, burpees are not the easiest exercise.

In fact, I think they're one of the hardest calisthenics, cardio exercises,

especially when you get into the advanced variations

with jump squats and push

ups.

But the truth is there's beginner variations that you

can use to ease your way into burpees.

And that's what this video is gonna be all about. (MUSIC)

Okay, really quick.

Before we jump into the variations, I just wanna explain what a burpee really is?

At its very essence, a burpee is when you go into a squat, you kick out into a plank,

and then you return to a squat.

That is a burpee. Everything you see with like jump squats and push

ups and explosive push-ups at the bottom,

those are advanced variations.

So, what I'm gonna show you in this video is how you can

take that concept of taking a squat into a plank and back,

start off with beginner progressions

and then progressively get into more harder variations.

So, the first variation we're gonna look at is what I call gentle burpees.

Start off standing with feet about shoulder with apart

and what you wanna do is you wanna squat down,

touch the floor with your hands and then step back into a plank,

step the feet forward again.

So, you're in a squat and then stand back up to the starting position.

Doing this over and over again is gonna give you a feel of what it's like to do a burpee,

meaning go down into a squat and then into a plank and then back into a squat.

But you're doing it gently without the explosiveness of jumping into

the squat or doing a push-up at the bottom.

Now, as you get used to this movement,

you may find that you will step back as you squat down.

I don't know if you caught that. And now watch

when I squat down, I step a foot back simultaneously

and you can do that as well to make the movement more fluid.

Just make sure you alternate which leg you're stepping back with,

so you're working both sides evenly.

Now,

these gentle burpees aren't the greatest for burning fat because

they don't get your heart rate up too much.

So, when you're ready, it's time to move on to what I call baby burpees.

With baby burpees,

you're gonna squat down hands on the floor and then kick out into

the plank and kick back up into the squat and stand up.

So basically,

the baby burpees are eliminating the step out

to the plank and instead you're kicking out

and making that bottom position more explosive.

Notice, I'm not doing these too fast,

all right, because when you kick out into the plank,

you wanna hold that plank for a second.

Try to concentrate on

really tightening the core and holding that plank as straight as possible.

Try not to let your hips sag too much in the plank position at the bottom.

And once you're comfortable with those,

it's time to move on to hop squat burpees. For these,

you're gonna hop into the squat, kick out, and kick back in.

So, now you have three explosive elements to your

burpees making this the most challenging variation so far.

So, notice that we hop, we kick out, we kick in. Hop, kick out,

and kick in.

Since this complex movement has three explosive elements to it,

you're gonna find that your heart rate really starts to get up there

when you start doing these hop squat burpees.

Once you're able to comfortably do sets of 10 or more of those hop squat burpees,

it's time for mountain climber

burpees.

Start off like you're doing a hop squat burpee,

but when you kick out into the plank,

start doing mountain climbers. Do like two or three per side and then return

back to the squat and hop up.

So, this is essentially a hop squat

burpee,

but we're starting to experiment with the

bottom position by adding those mountain climbers.

This variation is great because it helps you solidify the plank at the bottom

and you get some extra work on your abs because you're

doing those mountain climbers at the bottom of every rep.

Once you're comfortable doing those, it's time to move on to push-up burpees.

And these are kind of the gold standard.

So, you hop down, kick out, do a push-up and then hop back.

Now, notice that when I do these, I'm pausing momentarily in the plank at the bottom.

I recommend including that pause when you first start doing these

just so you don't sag at the hips when you do the plank.

But eventually you'll find that you can make this movement more fluid

and just sort of kick out and do the push-ups simultaneously.

As you can see here,

I'm actually bending at the elbows to lower into the push-up while I'm kicking out.

All right. And now tuck jump burpees.

These are gonna be like the hop squat burpee, except the hop is a jump. Now,

notice when I jump at the beginning, I'm tucking my thighs up towards my chest.

That's really adding to the explosiveness of the jump.

And this variation is gonna get your heart

rate up more than any other burpee variation.

So, don't underestimate the power of that tuck jump.

And remember that the tuck jump is an element that you can add to any burpee

to make it more intense and really make it a good cardio workout.

And once you're doing the tuck jump burpees, you can start doing combinations.

All right.

So, check this out. You can do like a tuck jump down to a push-up, right?

That's a great combination because it's a super explosive,

top and bottom part to the movement.

And maybe when you're doing those,

you decide you wanna work your chest a little extra.

So, you can do hop squats and then into explosive clapping push-ups, right?

So, hop down

and then explosive clapping push-up like that.

It'll put extra emphasis on the chest while you're doing your burpees.

And maybe you want the whole thing to be super challenging.

So, you do tuck jumps as well as clapping push-ups. So, it's just explosive all around.

Once you progress through all these burpee variations,

I really encourage you to get creative.

I mean, here you can see I'm using my pull-up bar instead of jumping into a squat,

right?

So,

this is more just like a pull-up down to a push-up. But technically, it's a burpee.

It's just that you're doing a totally different top part of the movement.

All right, everybody.

So, that's how you go from the most basic

beginner variation of burpees to the advanced variations

you see people doing.

I hope the video was helpful to you.

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So, I just have to talk directly into the camera mic and it's not that great.

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I'll be making plenty more fitness and nutrition videos to help you on your journey.